SHAFAQNA- The Star | By: Olivia Bowden : When an employee from the Children’s Aid Society visited Shahzad Mustafa’s mosque, in order to talk about the significance of Muslim families fostering children of the identical religion, he remembered thinking of his own childhood.

His mother had taken in three Muslim foster children for a few months when he was young — an experience he said had a profound impact on his life.

As the CAS worker told the congregation in Markham last year about the scarcity of Muslim foster families in the region, Mustafa says he was struck by a need to act — a feeling that eventually motivated him to launch an organization dedicated to encouraging Muslims in the Greater Toronto Area to become foster caregivers.

“We should be looking after our kids and we should be part of a bigger solution,” the 50-year-old said.

“As immigrant communities become more prominent within Canadian society, there needs to be more outreach within those communities to bring more families into the foster-care movement.”

The organization, called FosterLink, launched in March with support from Mercy Mission Canada, a Muslim community development group that Mustafa is the director of.